According to a top executive of Walmart, the American retail giant that owns Flipkart and PhonePe, India is expected to overtake China as Walmart’s biggest market outside the United States this year. Walmart CFO John David Rainey, who visited India last year, believes that Flipkart and PhonePe present exciting opportunities and have large market shares in India. He added that India is a promising opportunity for the future and is likely to become the largest market in the world this year.
During a call, Walmart executives mentioned that Flipkart’s contribution margin is already positive and continues to grow. Additionally, investments in infrastructure over the last three years have enabled it to benefit from India’s great economic potential. Despite that, in the Q4 of 2021 Walmart’s international revenue witnessed a steep decline of 72% in constant currency terms to $300 million. This was mainly due to the restructuring of Flipkart and PhonePe as independent businesses.
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During the earnings call, Judith McKenna, Walmart International chief, remarked that upon their first investment in Flipkart, PhonePe was only a recently created 4-month-old business but had already achieved a TPV (total payments value) of millions of dollars. As of the December quarter, PhonePe’s annualised TPV had crossed $950 billion, and the number of monthly transactions had topped 4 billion.
Flipkart recently decided to limit salary increases of 70% of staff members to remain cost efficient and enhance profitability. This comes at a time when other tech companies have been cutting back on costs. Unfortunately, 5,000 of the senior staff at this company won’t be getting pay rises in 2021. The evaluated annual appraisals for these employees were all completed but the salary increments are only set to start from April 1. Employees of Walmart-owned companies can expect to receive bonus payouts and stock option allotments as promised, according to an informed source.
